{"id":653919,"date":"2026-05-20T06:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T06:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/653919\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T06:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T06:49:13","slug":"sonoma-water-awarded-nearly-48-million-to-upgrade-troubled-lower-russian-river-wastewater-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/653919\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonoma Water awarded nearly $48 million to upgrade troubled lower Russian River wastewater system"},"content":{"rendered":"

A long-awaited overhaul of the lower Russian River\u2019s aging wastewater system is on deck after Sonoma Water<\/a> was awarded a $47.8 million grant from the state.<\/p>\n

The money, funded through California\u2019s Clean Water State Revolving Fund program<\/a>, will support the Russian River Sanitation District\u2019s<\/a> efforts to rehabilitate the system\u2019s 34 miles of sewer lines and four miles of mains, serving 3,300 parcels between Rio Nido<\/a> to Vacation Beach in Guerneville<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t promise anything, but I think we\u2019re going to see a significant benefit and improvements to the overall functionality of the system,\u201d Carlos Diaz, deputy director in engineering design with Sonoma Water said.<\/p>\n

The award is the largest ever for Sonoma Water, the parent agency that first applied for the grant in 2019. It has seen repeated spills on its watch linked to the Neeley Road plant<\/a>. The latest, and largest in more than 40 years, came in January,<\/a> when an estimated 5.5 million gallons of wastewater, including untreated sewage, overflowed from the treatment plant into the lower Russian River for more than three days.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Russian River flows through Monte Rio, at the Monte Rio Bridge, on Friday, January 9, 2026. Untreated wastewater, including sewage, overflowed for three days starting Jan. 6 into the Russian River from the treatment plant operated by Sonoma Water on Neeley Road, near Guerneville. (Christopher Chung\/The Press Democrat)<\/p>\n

The spill came as the Russian River region received about 5.5 inches of rain, causing the river to rise more than 20 feet over the course of six days, though topping out two feet under minor flood stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just got hammered,\u201d David Royall, assistant manager of operations and management with Sonoma Water, said at the time. The fallout\u00a0led water and public health officials to issue advisories\u00a0closing beaches\u00a0along more than 13 miles of the lower river and a 40-mile stretch of the Sonoma Coast.<\/p>\n

State regulators launched an investigation that found four violations, including illegal discharge of waste into the Russian River, according to the state water board website. Sonoma Water officials said at the time it was caused by the high volume of stormwater that entered the system over a short period of time, quickly overwhelming it.<\/p>\n

The county also received a notice from a Sebastopol environmental watchdog group threatening to sue the water agency and the Russian River Sanitation District<\/a> over alleged water quality violations tied to the multi-day spill.<\/p>\n

The state grant will support modernization of the sewer plant\u2019s headworks, where sewage enters the facility as well as its lift or pump stations and its force mains \u2014 all critical junctures to reduce the risk of overflows and improve system reliability, Sonoma Water officials said.<\/p>\n

Over the next four years, Sonoma Water and the Russian River Sanitation District will use the funding to replace mechanical and electrical equipment along 11 lift stations, Diaz said. Three of the system\u2019s force mains \u2014 pressurized metal pipes that convey wastewater \u2014 will be replaced or lined with plastic, which Diaz said is less vulnerable to sulfur dioxide and corrosive gases that factored in previous sewer overflows.<\/p>\n

\u201cForce mains have failed in the past,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cIt is a big hole in the pipe that can lead to sink holes. We\u2019ve had to close down a lane of River Road in the past to replace these force mains.\u201d<\/p>\n

The system has experienced at least four failures over the last 12 years.<\/p>\n

A February 2014 storm forced the river to rise rapidly, overloading the mainline until it ruptured and spilled roughly 100,000 gallons of wastewater into the river.<\/p>\n

\"SycamoreSycamore Court resident Chris Tipton looks for floating toys and personal belongings of the park’s residents flooded by Armstrong Creek, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019 in Guerneville. Sycamore Court flooding is one of the first indicators that the Russian River is backing up tributaries that feed into the river. (Kent Porter \/ The Press Democrat) 2019<\/p>\n

In 2019, more than 885,600 gallons of untreated wastewater, including sewage, spilled into the river and streets at three places in Guerneville<\/a> in February and early March 2019, after an unprecedented series of atmospheric rivers slammed the region.<\/p>\n

And in 2024, roughly 277,000 gallons of untreated wastewater spilled into the river<\/a> when a late February storm caused the waterway to rise about 18 feet over four days, triggering a power failure at the treatment plant.<\/p>\n

Diaz said the state award will allow the agency to make the system more resilient in the face of the big storms that inundate the lower Russian River region.<\/p>\n

That means expanding the pumping capacity of the lift stations. \u201cThey\u2019ll be able to accommodate a lot more now,\u201d Diaz said, \u201cso if one fails, others can accommodate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lift stations also will have a generator placed five feet above the 100-year flood stage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat way we can continue to operate without staff doing musical chairs with portable generators trying to keep the whole thing running,\u201d Diaz said.<\/p>\n

Lastly, the agency will also be able to increase treatment capacity at the Neeley Road plant.<\/p>\n

Still, the major overhaul is not set to address the need for extra storage at the site, nor is it the long-term solution to a wider wastewater dilemma that has plagued the lower Russian River area for decades. That stems from the region\u2019s reliance on aging septic systems across many of its homes \u2014 a large share of them heavily used by summer visitors.<\/p>\n

A favored solution is to hook up many of those parcels, especially in the Monte Rio and Villa Grande neighborhoods, to the Guerneville system. But that step is likely years \u2014 or decades \u2014 away, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Brenda Adelman, a longtime advocate for the health of the Russian River<\/a>, said the region is expressing \u201chappiness all around.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know staff had to work very hard to make that happen,\u201d she said. \u201cTo learn that they were granted the full amount absolutely astonished me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amie Windsor is the Community Journalism Team Lead with The Press Democrat. She can be reached at amie.windsor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5218.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A long-awaited overhaul of the lower Russian River\u2019s aging wastewater system is on deck after Sonoma Water was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[2356,192,193446,163489,281909,79,163491,60802],"class_list":["post-653919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-california","tag-environment","tag-guerneville","tag-russian-river","tag-russian-river-sanitation-district","tag-science","tag-sonoma-water","tag-wastewater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}